VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Mio Global, makers of the wrist-worn heart rate monitors Mio ALPHA and Mio LINK, together with Adidas, today announced that the heart-rate monitoring technology featured in the miCoach SMART RUN watch which has been selected as a Health and Fitness Honoree in the CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards, is the Mio Continuous Heart Rate technology. This will be the second year in a row that the MIO breakthrough optical heart rate sensing technology has been an integral part of a CES Innovations Design and Engineering award-winning product. Last year at CES 2013, Mio ALPHA was also chosen as an honoree in the same category. The Mio technology implemented into the new Adidas miCoach SMART RUN watch, measures performance-level continuous rate while athletes are in motion by utilizing LED technology to detect pulsing volume of blood flow.

Using two green LEDs and an electro-optical cell, the Adidas miCoach SMART RUN watch measures every beat of the heart in real-time. The technology is integrated into the back plate of the watch so LEDs shine light into the skin, enabling the electro-optical cell to detect the pulsing volume of blood flow. In the past, athletes have turned to chest straps to track heart rate--but now wrist-worn technology can track the body's response to exertion with real-time heart rate measurement, leading to more efficient training and accurate progress tracking.

"Optical heart rate measurement has never before been suitable or accessible to performance athletes, simply because other signals generated by movement disturbed the results," said Liz Dickinson, inventor of patented Mio technology. "The design of the Adidas miCoach SMART RUN watch, coupled with accelerometer technology we've added to compensate for any small disturbance in heart rate, this watch outputs a clean heart rate signal in performance scenarios. Athletes can say goodbye to their chest-strap heart rate monitors."

Mio's patented continuous heart rate technology is at the core of Mio's flagship devices: the first ever wrist-worn heart rate monitor Mio ALPHA, as well as the Mio LINK, an affordable wrist-worn heart rate monitor recently unveiled at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). To help achieve commercialization of Mio ALPHA's breakthrough, Hydra Ventures (fully-owned corporate venturing arm of Adidas), invested in Mio Global. The partnership gave Adidas access to the award-winning Mio continuous heart rate technology, and both companies will continue to work together to integrate the technology into future Adidas miCoach products and services. Mio's breakthrough technology has been recognized back to back in both 2013 and 2014 as a Health and Engineering honoree in the Health and Fitness category during the CES Innovation Awards.

"When we made the decision to integrate the Mio technology, we were looking to manufacture a state of the art running watch and understood they had the partners and technology to get the job done," said Simon Drabble, Director, miCoach BU, Adidas AG. "The continuous heart rate technology found in the miCoach SMART RUN watch is compelling to the performance athletes who want to lose the chest strap without sacrificing accuracy, even in high-performance workouts performed by many of those in our miCoach program."

The Adidas miCoach SMART RUN watch has a GPS, music player, full color touch screen and heart-rate monitoring capabilities, and retails for $399. For more information about Mio Global, including its devices ALPHA and LINK, or its interactive exercise app Mio GO, visit www.mioglobal.com/pressroom. For more information about the Adidas miCoach SMART RUN watch, visit http://micoach.adidas.com/us/smartrun.

About MIOMIO, a recognized pioneer in health and fitness technology, is the maker of the Mio ALPHA and Mio LINK, the world's first sport watch and sport band to provide continuous, accurate heart rate monitoring at performance levels - without a chest strap. Both devices connect to Mio's fitness app Mio GO and other fitness apps, creating an easy way for athletes to track and record their fitness progress. Founded in 1999 by Liz Dickinson, Mio is a brand of Physical Enterprises Inc. Mio's team of world-class scientists, engineers and professionals strive to help athletes reach their goals by innovating high-precision, easy-to-use technologies from the company headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. For more information, visit www.mioglobal.com.

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